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OHIO 
Archaeological and Historical 

PUBLICATIONS. 



BIG BOTTOM AND ITS HISTORY. 



CLEMENT L. MARTZOLFF. 

The history of Big Bottom has no claim on being unique, 
unless the recent action of Mr. 
Obadiah Brokaw, in erecting a 
monument at his own expense 
to mark the site of the block- 
house can demand such dis- 
tinction. The events con- 
nected with this historic 
ground are decidedly type 
studies. Its early history is 
but representative of and 
part of that general conflict 
between the Indian and the 
white man. Its later history 
typifies what ought to be done 
with all the similar sites in 
Ohio. 

The history of Big Bottom 
can therefore be divided into 
two distinct periods, separated 
by an interval of one hundred 
and fifteen years. The first 
story of Big Bottom is a 
chapter in the narrative of the 
conquest of America. It 
forms one step in the onward 
march of the intrepid Anglo- 
Saxon as he pushed toward the setting sun 
Vol. XV— 1. (1) 




MONUMENT ON SITE OF BIG BOTTOM 
M.'KSS.A.CRE. 



It also exemplifies 







2 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

how that step was arrested and where the conquerer was for the 
time the conquered. 

As an historical factor, one Indian battle or massacre is about 
as important as another. They all tell to the student of history 
the same truth. We only repeat it that men may see its uni- 
versality and "lest we forget." 

It was indeed fortunate for our Ohio "Forefathers" that 
when the "Second ^Mayflower" came to the mouth of the Mus- 
kingum, Fort Harmar was already there and that from behind her 
walls, would belch forth in the name of the new nation, the edict, 
that here the conquest of the continent would be made under the 
dignity of civic law. But this good fortune was not for long. 
The settlement at Marietta was made in 1788. It was not a great 
while until the inhabitants began to cast about for suitable loca- 
tions for settlement in the vicinity. The virgin woods of Ohio 
called loud to these pioneers. The river that ran between them 
and Fort Harmar and which joined its blue waters with the amber 
Ohio at the foot of their village, urged a constant invitation to 
follow its winding course. There were large stretches of bottom 
lands on both sides of the stream. It was the natural highway 
that led up into a vast territory fitted for settlement and coloni- 
zation. 

But it had not been left for the Mariettians to discover for 
themselves the qualities obtaining along the banks of the Elk Eye. 
Already in 1785, General Parsons, afterward one of the judges 
of the territory north of the Ohio, while on an inspection tour in 
the interests of the proposed Ohio Company, made a trip up the 
Muskingum River. At the Saltlick, Duncan's Falls, he met Jon- 
athan Zane, who was there making salt. He questioned him about 
the Ohio country. Zane knew all about the territory drained by 
the river, and he advised General Parsons, and later Dr. Cutler, 
to make his proposed settlement on the Muskingum, north of the 
Licking.^ It is no wonder then that the people at Marietta had 
predilections for going up the river and "spying out the land." 
Within two and a half years from the coming of the "Mayflower," 
Marietta consisted of about eighty houses within a distance of a 
mile. There were scattering houses three miles up the river. 

' Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications, Vol. 13. 



Big Bottom and Its History. 3 

There was a set of mills on Duck Creek four miies distant, and 
another mill two miles up the Muskingum. At Waterford, 
twenty-two miles further up stream was a settlement of twenty 
families. Two miles from Waterford, on Wolf Creek, was a set 
of mills and five families. Below Marietta, and opposite the Lit- 
tle Kanawha, was the Belpre settlement with houses extending 
along the river front a distance of twelve miles and consisting of 
some thirty or forty families.- 

This was the situation of affairs in the autumn of 1790. 
These scattered settlements were practically helpless to ward off 
an Indian invasion. It is true that after St. Clair's treaty with 
the Indians at Fort Harmar in January, 1789, there was 
among the colonists a fancied security. But the Miamis would 
not be bound by any existing agreements and refused to yield 
their Ohio lands. The approaching storm was not unheralded. 
The premonitions of an Indian uprising were many. To these 
signs the people of Marietta were not altogether oblivious. Dur- 
ing the summer General Harmar had withdrawn from his fort 
on the Muskingum nearly all of his troops to aid in his Miami 
campaign. His subsequent defeat only irritated the savages and 
their usual career of slaughter followed. Returning hunters told 
of various attacks made by the Indians and boats passing the new 
settlement would tell the same story. With the frequent coming" 
of such ill-boding news and with but a handful of soldiers at 
Fort Harmar. it is no wonder that the JNlariettians were uneasy. 

Yet in spite of the unsettled condition of the western country 
and in spite of the warning given by "older heads" at Marietta 
a company of thirty-six men began the settlement at Big Bottom. 

Big Bottom, while not possessed of a very euphonious title,, 
was well named. It is about thirty miles from the mouth of the 
Muskingum, and consists of a fine stretch of level land extending 
on the east side of the river a distance of over four miles. The 
most of it is situated upon a terrace. Between the river bank 
and this terrace, at the northern end of the "Bottom" is where the 
ill-fated blockhouse was built in the late autumn of 1790. To 
be specific, the location is one and a half miles southeast of the 



* Gen. Putman's Letter to President Washington after Big Bottom 
Massacre. 



4 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

village of Stockport, in the township of Windsor, Morgan county, 
Ohio. 

The subsequent occurrences at the block-house we quote 
from Dr. S. P. Hildreth's "Pioneer History." Dr. Hildreth was 
a resident of Marietta and his account is the only authentic record 
we have of the massacre : 

"A few yards above the block house, was a small drain put down from 
the plain into the river, forming a shallow ravine. A small opening had 
been cleared about the building, on the river side, surrounded by the 
adjacent forest. The associates were chiefly young, unmarried men, but 
little acquainted with Indian warfare or military rules. 

"Those most familiar- with the Indians, had little doubt of their 
hostility, and strongly opposed the settlers going out that fall, and 
advised them to remain until spring, by which time the question of 
war or peace would probably be decided. But the j^oung men were 
impatient of delay, and confident in their own ability to protect them- 
selves. They went ; put up a block house, which might accommodate 
the whole of them on an emergency. It was built of large beech 
logs, rather open, and not well filled in between them. This job was 
left for a rainy day, or some more convenient time. They had also 
neglected to inclose their house with palisades, and ceasing to complete 
the work, the general interest was lost in that of the convenience of 
each individual. Another error was the neglect of any regular system 
of defense, and the omission of setting sentries. Their guns were lying 
in different corners of the house, without order. About 20 men usually 
slept in the building, a part of whom were absent at the time of attack. 
At one end of the house was a large, open fire-place, and when the 
day closed, all came in, and built a large fire and commenced cooking 
and eating their supplies." (MSS. of Colonel Barker.) 

"The weather, for some time previous to the attack, had been 
quite cold, and the Muskingum river frozen over since the 22nd of 
December, so as to be passable on the ice. On Sunday, the 2nd day of 
January, ]791, it thawed a little, with the ground partially covered with 
snow. In the depth of winter, it was not customary for the Indians 
to go out on war parties, and the early borderers had formerly thought 
themselves safe from their depredations during the winter months. About 
20 rods above the block house, and a little back from the river, two 
men, Francis and Isaac Choate, members of the association, had erected 
a cabin, and commenced clearing their lots. Thomas Shaw, a hired 
laborer, and James Batten, another of the company, lived with them. 
About the same distance below the garrison was an old clearing and 
a small cabin, made several years before, under the laws of Virginia, 
which two men, Asa and Eleazar Bullard, had fitted up, and now occu- 
pied. The Indian war path, from Sandusky to the mouth of the Mus- 
kingum, passed along on the opposite ridge, in sight of the river. 



Big Bottom and Its History. 5 

The Indians, who had been hunting and loitering about the settle- 
ments during the summer, were well acquainted with the approaches to 
the white settlements and with the manner in which they lived, each 
family in their own cabin, not apprehensive of danger. With the knowl- 
edge of these circumstances, they planned and fitted out a war party 
for the destruction of the Waterford settlement. It is supposed they 
were not aware of there being a station at Big Bottom, until they came 
in sight of it from the high ground on the west side of the river, in 
the afternoon of the 2nd of January. a From the ridge they had a 
view of all that oart of the bottom, and could see how the men were 




MUSKINGUM RIDGE. 



occupied, and the defenseless condition of the block house. After com- 
pleting their reconnoisance and holding a council as to the mode of 
attack, they crossed the river on the ice a little above, and divided their 
warriors into two divisions; the larger one to assault the block house, 



a This ridge is the route of the famous Monongehela Indian Trail, 
which was the war path from the Indian towns in Ohio to frontier settle- 
ments of Southwestern Pennsylvania. See Hulbert's Article "Indian 
Thoroughfares in Ohio," Vol. 8, Historical Publications. 



6 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

and the smaller one to make prisoners of the men in the upper cabin 
without alarming those below. The plan was skillfully arranged and 
promptly executed. Cautiously approaching the cabin they found the 
inmates at supper ; a portion of them enter£d the door, while others 
stood without, and spoke to the men in a friendly manner. Suspect- 
ing no harm they offered them food, of which they partook. The In- 
dians seeing some leather thongs in a corner of the room, took the 
whites by the arms, making signs that they were prisoners and bound 
them. Finding it useless to resist against superior numbers, they sub- 
mitted to their fate. While this was transacting at Choate's cabin, the 
other party had reached the block house unobserved; even the dogs gave 
no notice of their approach by barking, as they usually do, the reason 
of which probably was that they were also within by the fire, instead 
of being on the watch for their masters' safety. The door was thrown 
open by a large, resolute Indian, who stepped in and stood by its side 
to keep it unclosed, while his comrades without shot down the white 
men around the fire. Zebulon Throop, from Massachusetts, who had 
just returned from the mills with a bag of meal, was frying meat, and 
fell dead into the fire; several others fell at this discharge. The In- 
dians now rushed in and killed all that were left with the tomahawk. 
No effectual resistance seems to have been offered, so sudden and unex- 
pected was the attack, by any of the men, but a stout, resolute, back- 
woods Virginia woman, the wife of Isaac Meeks, who was employed as 
their hunter, seized an axe and made a blow at the head of the Indian 
who opened the door; a slight turn of the head saved his skull, and the 
axe passed down through his cheek into the shoulder, leaving a huge 
gash that severed nearly half his face. She was instantly killed with 
the tomahawk of one of the other Indians, before she could repeat the 
blow. This was the only injury received by the savages, as the men 
were all killed before they had time to seize their arms, which were 
standing in the corners of the room. While the slaughter was going 
on, John Stacey, a young man in the prime of life, the son of Colonel 
William Stacey, sprang up the ladder into the upper story and from 
thence on to the roof of the house, hoping to escape that way, while 
his brother Philip, a lad of 16 years, secreted himself under some bed- 
ding in one corner of the room. The Indians on the outside watching 
that none escaped, soon discovered John on the roof and shot him, 
while he was in the act of begging them "for God's sake to spare his 
life, as he was the only one left." His appeal to the Indians was heard 
by the two Bullards, who alarmed by the firing at the block house, had 
run out of their cabin to learn the cause. Discovering the Indians 
around the house, they sprung back to the hut, seized their rifles and 
put out into the woods, in a direction to be hid by the cabin from the 
sight of the Indians. They had barely escaped when they heard their 
door burst open by the savages. They did not pursue them, although 



Big B otto 1)1 and Its History. 7 

they knew they had just fled, as there was a brisk fire in the chimney, 
and their food for supper smoking hot on the table. 

"After the slaughter was over, and the scalps secured, one of the 
most important acts in the warfare of the American Indians, they pro- 
ceeded to collect the plunder. In removing the bedding, the lad Philip 
Stacey was discovered. Their tomahawks were instantly raised for his 
destruction, when he threw himself at the feet of one of their leading 
warriors, begging him to protect him. The savage either took compassion 
on his youth, or else his revenge being satisfied with the slaughter already 
made, interposed his authority and saved his life. After removing every- 
thing they thought valuable, they tore up the floor, piled it over the 
dead bodies, and set it on fire, thinking to consume the block house 
with the carcasses of their enemies. The structure being made of green 
beech logs, would not readily burn, and the fire only destroyed the floors 
and roof, leaving the walls still standing. A curious fact, showing the 
prejudices of the Indians, is related by William Smith, who was one 
of the associates, but providentially absent at the time of the attack. 
He was at the place the second day after, and says, the Indians carried 
out the meal, beans, etc., which they found in the house before setting 
it on fire, and laid them in small heaps by the stumps of trees, a few 
paces distant. They probably thought it sacrilege to destroy food, or 
that it would give offense to the Great Spirit to do so, for which he 
would in some way punish them. No people were ever more influenced 
in their actions by auguries and omens, than the savages of North 
America. 

"There were 12 persons killed in this attack, viz : John Stacey, 
Ezra Putnam, son of Major Putnam, of Marietta; John Camp, and 
Zebulon Throop. from Massachusetts ; Jonathan Farewell, and James 
Couch, New Hampshire; William James, Connecticut; John Clark, 
Rhode Island; Isaac Meeks, wife, and two children, from Virginia. 
These men were well armed, and no doubt could have defended them- 
selves against the Indians, had they taken proper precautions. But they 
had no veteran revolutionary officers with them to plan and direct their 
operations, as they had at all the other stations. If they had picketed 
their house and kept a regular guard, the Indians probably would not 
have ventured an attack; but seeing the naked block house, they were 
encouraged to attempt its capture. Colonel Stacey, an old soldier, fam- 
iliar with Indian warfare in Cherry Valley, where he formerly lived, 
visited the post on the Saturday previous, and seeing its insecure con- 
dition, gave them a strict charge to keep a regular guard, and prepare 
immediately strong bars to the door, to be shut every night at sunset. 
They, however, apprehending no danger, did not profit by his advice. 

"The two Bullards after effecting their escape traveled rapidly 
down the river about 4 miles to Samuel Mitchel's hunting camp. Cap- 
tain Rogers, a soldier of the revolution, a fine hunter, and afterwards 



8 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

a ranger for the garrison at Marietta, was living with him, and a Mo- 
hican Indian, from Connecticut, by the name of Dick Layton. Mitchel 
was absent at the mills; Rogers and Dick were lying wrapped up in 
their blankets sleeping by the fire. They were awakened and made 
acquainted with the cause of their untimely visit, and the probable 
fate of the people at the block house. Seizing their weapons without 
delay, they crossed the river on the ice, and shaped their course through 
the woods for Wolf Creek Mills, distant about G miles, and reached 
there by l6 o'clock that evening. 

"On announcing the news of the attack on Big Bottom, and the 
probable approach of the Indians to the Mills, great was the consterna- 
tion and alarm of the helpless women and children. Several additional 
families had joined this station since the year 1789, but a number of the 
leading men were absent to attend the court of quarter sessions, which 
was to set at Marietta on Monday. This rendered their condition still 
more desperate, in case of an attack, which they had every reason to 
expect before daylight in the morning. The gloom of night greatly added 
to their distress, and gave energy to their fears. Under the direction of 
Captain Rogers, who had been familiar with similar events, the inhabit- 
ants, amounting to about 30 souls, principally women and children, were 
all collected into the largest and strongest cabin, which belonged to 
Colonel Oliver, and was the one standing nearest to the Wolf Creek 
mills. The people at Millsburgh had neglected to erect a block house, 
as they were instructed to do. and now felt the need of one. Into this 
cabin they brought a few of their most valuable goods, with all the tubs, 
kettles and pails they could muster, which Captain Rogers directed to 
be filled with water from the creek, for the purpose of extinguishing 
fire, should the Indians attempt to burn the house, which was one of 
their most common modes of attack. The door was strongly barred, 
and windows made fast ; the men, seven in number, were posted in the 
loft, who by removing a few chunks between the logs, with here and 
there a shingle from the roof, soon made port holes from which to lire 
upon the enemy. Like a prudent soldier, their leader posted one man 
as a sentry on the outside of the house, under cover of a fence to give 
timely notice of their approach. It was a long and weary night, never 
to be forgotten by the mothers and children, who occupied the rootn 
below, and thought they should be first sacrificed if the Indians entered 
the house. Just before daylight the sentinel gave notice of their approach. 
Several were obscurely seen, through the gloom of night, near the saw 
mill, and their movements distinctly heard as they stepped on some loose 
boards. Their tracks were also seen the next morning in some patches 
of snow. Finding the people awake, and on the lookout for an attack, 
they did nothing more than reconnoitre the place, and made their retreat 
at day dawn, to the great relief of the inhabitants. 

"Samuel Mitchel was dispatched early in the night to give the 
alarm to the people at Waterford, and two runners were sent to Marietta. 



Big BottO)n and Its History. 9 

Nothing could better demonstrate the courage and humanity of Captain 
Rogers, than his conduct in this affair, thus to weaken his own means 
of defense by parting with some of his most active and brave men 
to notifjf the sleeping settlers of their danger, when he had every reason 
to expect an attack from an overwhelming force in a few hours. Mitchel 
on his way to the river called at the cabin of Harry Maxen, near the 
mouth of the creek. He was gone to Marietta, but his wife, and Major 
Tyler, who lived with him, crossed over with Mitchel on the ice, to 
awaken and notify the people of the danger that awaited them. They 
first called at the dwelling of the Widow Convers, whose husband had 
died of smallpox the year before ; it stood near the center of the present 
town of Beverly. She was the mother of 8 children ; the two oldest 
were sons; James, a young man, and Daniel, a lad of 15, who was shortly 
after taken by the Indians. In one hour from the time the alarm was 
given by Mitchel, these two young fellows had visited every cabin in 
the settlement, extending for two miles up and down the river. With 
all the haste the emergency required, and with as little noise as possible, 
the inhabitants assembled in their only block house, which was quite 
small, and stood near the lower part of the donation lots. 

"The terror of the women and children, hurried out of their beds 
at midnight, was not much less than that of those at the mills; but it 
so happened they had a larger number of old soldiers among them, as 
but few were absent at the court. The block house was about 15 feet 
square, and sheltered that night 12 heads of families, with their wives 
and children, amounting in all to 67 souls. No alarm took place that 
gloomy night, save the noise of the watch dogs, which were left out of 
doors to give notice by their barking of the approach of the savages. 
Early in the morning, scouts of the most active men were sent out to 
reconnoitre and search for signs of the enemy. None however were 
seen. In the course of the day they visited their deserted houses for 
food, which they had no time to take with them in the hurry of the pre- 
ceding night. The escape of the two Bullards was a merciful and provi- 
dential event for the settlers of Waterford. If these men had been killed, 
or captured, the Indians would that night have fallen on the unsuspect- 
ing inhabitants in their sleep, who were far less able to resist than the 
people at Big Bottom, nearly all of them living detached in their log 
cabins. It is morally certain this would have been their fate, as the 
Indians fitted out the war party with, the express object of destroying 
these two settlements, and had said that before the leaves again covered 
the trees, they would not leave a smoke of the white man on this side 
of the Ohio river. 

"The next day, or the 4th of January, Captain Rogers led a party 
of men over to Big Bottom. It was a melancholy sight to the poor 
borderers, as they knew not how soon the same fate might befall them- 
selves. The action of the fire, although it did not entirely consume, had 
so blackened and disfigured the dead bodies, that few of them could be 



10 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Puhlications. 

recognized. That of William James, was known by his great size, being 
■6 feet and 4 inches in height,- and stoutly made. As the earth was frozen 
on the- outside, a hole was dug within the walls of the house, and the 
bodies consigned to one grave. No further attempt was made at a 
settlement here, until after the peace. 

"The party of warriors from the mills having joined their com- 
panions early in the day, and then, preparation was made for their home^ 
ward march. They knew from the escape of the men from the deserted 
cabin, and their observations at the mills, that the settlement below was 
aware of their vicinity, and that further attempts at that time would be 
useless. 

"The Indians engaged in this massacre were Delawares and Wyan- 
dots, and from the best information subsequently collected from the 
prisoners, were about 25 in number. Before departing, they left a war 
club in a conspicuous place, which is their mode of letting their enemies 
know that war is begun, and is equivalent to a written declaration among 
civilized powers. As it was quite uncertain, whether the wounded Indian 
would live or die, lots were cast on the prisoners for one to be sacrificed 
as an offering to his spirit, and to fulfill their law of revenge. The lot 
fell on Isaac Choate. He was directly stripped of his own comfortable 
dress, and habited in that of the wounded Indian, all clotted and soaked 
with blood, and loaded with a part of the plunder; while his own cloth- 
ing was put on his disabled enemy. As he was now a devoted victim, 
he was not suffered to travel in company with the others, but placed under 
the charge of two warriors who kept him a considerable distance in the 
rear, but generally in sight of the main body. 

"By careful attention to their wounded comrade (no civilized people 
being more kind than the Indians to their disabled fellows), he finally 
recovered, and Choate's life was spared. Had he died, his fatal doom 
was inevitable. As soon as the distance and the short days of winter 
would permit, the party reached the British post at the rapids of the 
Maumee river; soon after which Colonel McKee, the Indian agent, re- 
deemed Francis Choate from his captors. It is said that he was in- 
duced to this kind act from motives of humanity, and on account of his 
being a member of the brotherhood of Free Masons. In a few days he 
was sent to Detroit, and, embarking in a sloop, went down the lake to 
Niagara ; and from thence through the state of New York to his home 
in Leicester, Massachusetts. 

"His brother, Isaac, was taken to Detroit by the Indians at the 
same time, and falling in with a citizen of that place who traded with 
them, pursuaded him to advance the ransom demanded; promising to 
remain there and work at his trade, as a cooper, until he could repay 
the money. By his diligence and activity, in a few months, he earned 
the sum required, repaid the debt, and returned down the lake to his 
home in the same way. 



Big Bottom and Its History. 11 

"Thomas Shaw was kept by the Indians at the rapids for some 
months, when he was redeemed by the noted Colonel Brandt, without 
any expectation of it being refunded to him again. He soon after went 
to Detroit and worked for a French farmer, near that place. Colonel 
Brandt met with him at that place, and, finding him an expert axeman 
and familiar with clearing land, pursuaded him to go down and live 
with a brother-in-law, a physician, living on a farm, a few miles out 
from the fort, at Niagara. 

"Young Philip Stacey died of sickness, at the rapids. 

"James Patten, a middle aged man, was adopted into the family, 
and retained until the peace of 1795." 

We have seen what effect the receipt of the news had 
upon the various settlements. It was not until the forenoon 
of Monday, the third, that the messengers, having lost their way, 
brought the direful tidings to Marietta. The court of quarter 
sessions had just opened, but it immediately adjourned that those 
in attendance might return to their homes. There were dreadful 
forebodings among them as they departed homeward. Realizing 
their unprotected condition, they had much reason to anticipate 
the probable result. 

On the same day, the 3d, the agents and proprietors of the 
Ohio Company held a meieting. On the 5th they met again and 
continued to assemble daily until the loth. At these meetings 
the state of the colony was discussed and resolutions were passed 
looking to the security and the protection of the settlements. 
Governor St. Clair being absent, the judges of the court were 
■addressed and asked to represent to the general government the 
condition of the country. On the 7th of January the court ap- 
pointed Charles Green as an express to carry their views to Phil- 
adelphia.^ 

The situation at Marietta was indeed alarming. The news 
of the disastrous Harmar campaign only tended to increase their 
apprehensions. They were sufficiently acquainted with the Indian 
to believe that unless immediate relief could come to them that 
the settlements north of the Ohio were doomed. The Indians 
Tiad said that before the trees would again put forth their leaves, 
not a single smoke of the white man should remain on this side 
of the river. 



•MSS of Prof. M. R. Andrews. 



12 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

At Fort Harmar there was but one small detachment of 
troops, about twenty men, under command of Captain Ziegler. 
Because of the governor's absence,, no militia from adjoining 
states could be called. At this juncture the old veterans, schooled 
in the Revolution, look the initiative, and proceeded at once to 
put the colony into as good a state of defense as possible. The 
outlying districts were ordered abandoned and the people cen- 
tered at Marietta, Belpre, and Waterford. The Ohio Company 
provided for systematic defense. New block-houses were built 
at these places and the local militia was detailed to do garrison 
duty. Spies and scouts were employed to scour the woods to 
prevent sudden attacks by the savages. Campus Martins was 
also repaired and made better by an outer wall or palisade. The 
expenses incurred, amounting to about eleven thousand dollars, 
were met by the Ohio Company. It was expected that Congress 
would reimburse the company, but the expectations were never 
realized, and the entire amount was a dead loss.* 

General Putnam was most active in representing to the gov- 
ernment the true condition of the settlements. On January 6th 
he addressed a letter to Caleb Strong and Fisher Ames, members 
of Congress. He likened the position of the settlers to that of 
children who have been invited by their parents to gather plums 
under a hornet's nest, and then have the nest beat over them 
without having been given notice to get out of the way or being 
covered while the hornets were provoked.^ 

Two days later General Putnam wrote to President Wash- 
ington a full account of the recent attack. He went over the 
affair with minuteness, and in conclusion implored protection 
from the government. On the same day he dispatched a similar 
message to Secretary of War Knox.® 

We know that the efforts of the Mariettians for relief were 
successful, for the following summer a company of United States 
troop was stationed at Fort Harmar. Everything was placed 
in readiness for an Indian attack, which fortunately never came. 
The disastrous campaign of St. Clair had no direct results on the 

* Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications, Vol. 2, page 230.. 
" Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications, Vol. 2. 
'MSS of Prof. Andrews. 



Big Bottom and Its History. 13 

Muskingum, while the very successful expedition of Mad An- 
thony Wayne served as the grand finale of that chapter in Ohio 
history of which Big Bottom is a part. 

Again from behind the frontier palisades issued forth the 
intrepid pioneer. Up the beautiful little river and its winding 
creeks went that army of the "Heroes of the Forest." Where, on 
that winter's eve the war whoop of the savage was heard, there 
was now the merry song of the axe. The cabin was built. The 
clearing grew apace. Primitive boats laden with the first fruits 
of the great west floated down the silvery current of the "Elk 
Eye." Later came the whistle of the steamboat, echoing from 
the high hills on either side. Prosperous farms and villages dot- 
ted the fair valley and over it all breathed the benediction of "well 
done." 

The old block-house and its unfortunate occupants passed 
into a memory. In the march of progress its decaying logs had 
been cleared away. The pioneer plow turned its furrow over the 
graves where unhappy victims of the massacre were sleeping. 
Seed time and harvest, summer and winter passed in their tireless 
cycles, until three generations of sons and daughters had been 
born. Then began the second chapter of the history of Big Bot- 
tom.' 

When in 1865, Mr. Qbadiah Brokaw^ purchased the farm 



'' James Ball Naylor, the poet and novelist has given us an interest- 
ing historical novel based upon the Big Bottom Massacre, "In the Days 
of St. Clair." 

° Obadiah Brokaw was born near Flushing, Belmont County, Ohio, 
May 16, 1822. His father was Benjamin Brokaw who came to Belmont 
County from New Jersey. His mother was Mary Smith. They were 
both of Dutch descent. About 1830 they moved to Morgan County, 
settling near New Castle in Meigsville Township. Mr. Brokaw yet re- 
members the great Muskingum flood of 1832 when White's Mill near 
his home was carried away. Mr. Brokaw attended the rude school of that 
pioneer day. The school at which he was a pupil was taught by Timothy 
Eastman, who later became citizen of Athens County. An abandoned 
dwelling built by a Frenchman named LeFord was utilized as a school 
building. 

Living all his life except the first eight years upon the Muskingum, 
Mr. Brokaw has seen the gradual evolution of that stream from a pioneer 
highway for flat and keel boats until it has become a part of a great 



14 



Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 



on which Big Bottom Block House stood, tradition alone had 
marked the site of the massacre. In cultivat- 
ing the ground, the owner noticed a difference 
in the soil at certain spots, and he determined 
in his own mind that the location of the block 
house as popularly recognized was incorrect. 
He proceeded at once to make excavations, 
^^B ^WaJ ^"d soon discovered charred wood, ashes and 

^^^ ^("^Nli other remains of the destroyed building. Be- 
^^^^ ^^1 neath it all he exhumed the bones of some of 
^Jjj^^^Jm those whose lives had been lost in the Indian 
attack. Thus convinced, Mr. Brokaw has dur- 

MR. BROKAW. . ^, j- ,, j iU 

mg these many years careiully preserved the 
exact site. Realizing from his advanced years that soon the land 
would pass into other hands, he felt a desire to have the place prop- 
erly marked that those of the future generations might read a les- 
son from the pages of pioneer history. Without financial aid from 
any one he at once contracted with the Jones Monumental Works 
of McConnelsville, Ohio, to erect for him a fitting monument. The 
work of placing the monument was personally supervised by Mr. 
C. L. Bozman, of Beverly, Ohio, on Friday, May 28, 1905. It 
consists of a marble shaft whose apex is twelve feet above the 

system of internal navigation. He tells of the riffle in the river at Big 
Ludlow, where the flooded mill stood. A sand-bar was in the center of 
the stream. In order that boats might pass over the riffle the United 
States government at an early date built a dam on one side of the bar 
that the water might be thrown into the one channel. In Cleveland's 
administration when it was desired to secure sopie testimony concerning 
the early government work on the Muskingum, Mr. Brokaw and Captain 
I. N. Hook were the only two living witnesses who could testify to this 
first federal work. 

At McConnellsville, Robert McConnell had built a similar dam. It 
was impossible to get canoes through with the strength of four men. 
Mr. McConnell built a set of locks at his own expense. When the gov- 
ernment took charge of the Muskingum improvement, these private locks 
were destroyed. Many iron rods had been used in their construction. 
Mr. Brokaw then in his teens and a blacksmith's apprentice, helped to 
get this iron from the water. Their method was to make long handled 
chisels with which they could reach beneath the water and cut the iron 
bars. He also helped build the government dam at Stockport. 

At the age of seventeen Mr. Brokaw was apprenticed to Amos 



Big Bottom and Its History. 1& 

ground. The shaft proper, is an octagon seven and a half feet 
high. On one of the faces are inscribed these words : "Erected 
BY Obadiah Brokaw, 1905." The shaft stands on a hmestone 
base which in turn rests on another base of concrete. On the 
front of the hmestone base is carved, "Site of Big Bottom Mas- 
sacre, Winter of 1790." On the two sides are to be found 
the names of those killed, as follows : "James Couch, Wm. 
Jones, Joseph -Clark, Isaac Meeks, his wife and two chil- 
dren, John Stagey, Zebulon Throop, Ezra Putnam, John 
Camp and Jonathan Farewell." On the rear of the base are 
the names of those escaped : Asa Bullard, Eleazer Bullard^ 
and Philip Stagey. The monument displays excellent work- 
manship. It stands in a beautiful meadow near the public road 
and only a few rods from the bank of the river. It is plainly 
visible to passengers on the passing boats. 

On the day after the erection of the monument, the writer 
happening in the neighborhood and learning of Mr. Brokaw's 
patriotic act, visited him at his home. During the conversation 
that ensued the idea of transferring the monument and site of 
the block house to the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society 

Conoway, a blacksmith. Here he learned the art of making edged tools 
at which he soon became a master and at which he has worked for over 
sixty years. It was in the days before the machine made product was 
in the market. The result was that the demand for his handiwork was 
immense. The axes, mattocks, butcher-knives and corn cutters made 
on his anvil are almost without number. Even to-day he is kept as busy 
as he cares to be at his trade for the people will not allow him to stop. 

In 1843, Mr. Brokaw was married to Miss Czarina Fletcher of 
Meigs County. The six children born to them are yet living. In 1905, 
some time after the decease of his first wife, Mr. Brokaw was again 
married to Mrs. Lydia Daugherty Ellis. 

The farm upon which Big Bottom Blockhouse stood and where 
Mr. Brokaw has lived for forty years was purchased by him in 1865. 
It is said that the original purchaser of the land made enough maple 
from it to more than pay for its cost. Near the block house the settlers 
of the community for a numbers of years buried their dead. This old 
cemetery now containing but one rude gravestone is located on the land 
now possessed by the Historical Society. Robert Henry, an old settler in 
the vicinity, told Mr. Brokaw that on the sight of the blockhouse a 
second growth of young timber grew before the surrounding land finally 
cleared. 



16 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

was suggested to Mr. Brokaw. Subsequently, on August 17th, 
Secretary Randall, Mr. C. L. Bozman and the writer visited Mr. 
Brokaw, who offered to transfer to the Society the monument 
and two acres of surrounding land, on the condition that Mr. 
Brokaw be elected a life member of the same, and further, that 
the Society provide for the proper care of the monument and 
land transferred as an historic park and monument, keeping said 
property securely enclosed and protected from destruction and 
injury by the public and maintain the same as a free public park. 
These negotiations were approved and accepted by the Executive 
Committee of the Society on August 28th, 1905. 

Steps were at once taken for the proper dedicatory exercises 
that should mark the formal transfer of the property to the Soci- 
ety. A committee on arrangements, consisting of Secretary Ran- 
dall and the writer was appointed to arrange a program for the 
occasion. The latter being designated as chairman of this com- 
mittee, appointed a sub-committee of citizens of the Muskingum 
Valley, consisting of Superintendent of Schools Richardson, of 
McConnelsville, Superintendent of Schools Brown, of Stockport, 
and Mr. C. L. Bozman, of Beverly. The day selected for the 
commemoration was Saturday, September 30th. The event 
brought out a vast concourse of people, estimated at about four 
thousand. It was a good-natured crowd, and everybody seemed 
to enter into the spirit of the occasion. Mr. Brokaw, the generous 
donor of the historic site, was the recipient of many congratula- 
tions from his fellow citizens. 

The program proved to be of great interest to the people. 
It was begun by the writer, who after a short address, introduced 
Secretary Randall, the presiding officer of the day. The Stock- 
port band, which had been secured, interspersed the program 
with musical selections. The addresses which follow were given 
in the order named: Secretary Randall, President Brinkerhoflf, 
Judge William B. Crew, of the Supreme Court, Trustee W. H. 
Hunter, of Chillicothe, Trustee M. R. Andrews, of Marietta, Hon. 
Tod B. Galloway, Secretary to the Governor, and Trustee D. J. 
Ryan, Columbus. James Ball Naylor, the poet and novelist, 
closed the exercises with an original poem written for the occa- 
sion. 



Big Bottom and Its History. 



17 




L. MARTZOI^FF. 



ADDRESS OF C. L. MARTZOLFF. 
It is said that a minister's text is but a peg upon which to 
hang his sermon. If I were a minister the peg upon which I 
would hang this speech would be found 
among the jewels of the wonderful mines 
of King Solomon — The Book of Proverbs. 
"Remove not the ancient landmark, which 
thy fathers have set." 

Man has ever been a monument builder. 
When the Israelites fought with the hosts 
of Amalek, when the hands of Moses were 
stayed by Aaron and Hur until the going 
down of the sun and the Amalekites had 
been put to the sword, then it was that 
Moses builded an altar as a memorial of the 
great victory. 

When David the warrior king sent forth his mighty Joab to 
wage war upon the Edomites, he celebrated his success by a mon- 
ument of triumph, an inscribed tablet carved on the rocks of 
Edom after the manner of eastern kings. 

But centuries before the Hebrews built their rude memori- 
als among the hills of Palestine, the monarchs of the Orient had 
erected upon the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile, monu- 
ments to commemorate their achievements in war, or to extol 
the glories of royalty. 

We are told that at the portals of the sculptured palaces of 
Nineveh, there were colossal figures of men and beasts carved 
from white alabaster ; that within the interior stretching for miles 
and miles, the builder of the palace ranged the illustrated record 
of his exploits. There cut in the walls were represented vast pro- 
cessions of warriors, and satraps, and eunuchs, and tributary 
kings winding and winding throueh the corridors until the mind 
grows dizzy with the regal splendor and the heart grows sick at 
the vanity of kings. 

To-day the antiquarian digs down beneath the accumulated 
dust of the centuries and from the broken pieces of potterv and. 
the ruined columns he reads its history. 
Vol. XV — 2. 



18 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

We cross the borders of Asia and along the banks of the 
Nile we tread the soil of the Pharaohs. We look about us and 
see the wonderful pyramids erected by Egyptian kings to glorify 
their names while living and to cover their poor carcasses when 
dead. We can still see the millions of tribes wearing away their 
lives to satisfy the caprice of princes. Here in this land of plenty, 
capable of sustaining in comfort its entire population, amid all 
this wealth there is hunger and misery and woe among the people, 
that those above them may live in luxury. Even yet to-day the 
Egyptian peasant knows only to suffer and to die. 

A Roman Titus may build an Arch of Triumph to commem- 
orate the destruction of Jerusalem. He may show upon it how 
he led the Hebrews captive bearing upon their shoulders the 
golden candlestick, the trumpet of Jubilee and other treasures 
from the Temple on Mount Zion. 

A Napoleon in imitation of the Roman Caesars, builds two 
triumphal arches to celebrate his victories and to proclaim his 
mighty genius. But such is the irony of fate that at the foot of 
the grandest of these arches in 1814 the allied armies met to re- 
joice over the downfall of its builder; and here again in 1871 the 
victorious arms of Prussia emphasized their victory over the last 
of the Napoleons. 

Fortunate is he whose words have become flesh and dwell 
among men. No need for him to erect marble tablet or obelisk- 
to tell the world what he hath wrought. But deep in the souls 
of men is it inscribed in letters of fire that shine out with no 
uncertain light in their daily lives. 

To the "Father of his Country" there needed not be built 
a monument of his works. The patriots at Bunker Hill need not 
the shaft to tell men that they fought and died there. The 
heroes of Gettysburg, where they wore the Blue or the Gray, 
need neither tablet nor cenotaph to show that they bled there. Far 
more imperishable than marble or bronze is kept the testimony 
of their patriotism among the sons of men. 

In olden times kings erected monuments in their own honor. 
All this has changed. We now erect in honor of others. It is 
the people who live afterward, who have inherited the patrimony 
and who appreciate that heritage, that now erect memorials and 



Big BottoDi and Its History. 19 

preserve the "landmarks of their fathers." We do not erect 
monuments to the departed simply to show what they did, but 
rather what we are doing with the memories and inheritance 
which they left us. We erect monuments not so much to show 
the character of the patriotism of the past, but rather the quality 
of our own. The monuments we erect typify our aspiration and 
our labor. 

As long as people erect monuments in honor of the deeds of 
their fathers so long is that people tolerably safe from drifting 
into the shallows of anarchy and personal and class aggrandize- 
ment, where many nations and people in times past have been 
wrecked and gone to ruin and decay and their wrecks are strewn 
along time's fretful stream. 

Monuments are the expression of the thoughts of the peo- 
ple. They show what the people are thinking about. When peo- 
ple complain about setting up memorials in honor of their fathers, 
or when they cease to erect them, it is a premonition that they 
believe in no longer and appreciate no more the sacrifices and 
labors of their sires. It means that they are ready to cut away 
from old moorings and venture upon new seas, with neither com- 
pass nor chart. 

While it was justified to no little extent, such was the con- 
dition in France in the Revolution of 1789. A spirit of iconoclasm 
and anarchy swept over that fair land caring nothing for 
their historic heroes and kings because they represented to 
them tyranny and oppression. And yet in that boiling sea of 
rebellion the memory of men that had been an honor to France 
was allowed to go down into the universal maelstrom. 

But here in America it is different. Here monuments are 
the free, voluntary declaration of a free people. Here monu- 
ments tell us who our heroes are. And if you would know the 
character of a people, learn the character of its heroes. 

It is certainly a matter of congratulation that in this age of 
extreme commercialism, when the hero, or rather the heroine 
of most men is the Goddess of Liberty stamped on the dollar 
and the portraits of our national heroes have no better place in 
our lives than to adorn our bank notes, that men and women are 



20 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

yet to be found who do not want to "remove the landmarks of 
the fathers," but are wilhng to preserve and remark them. 

The erection of this monument is not only appropriate but 
opportune. We erect memorials to our national military heroes 
and to our presidents and statesmen. And why not to the Amer- 
ican pioneer? While we build to commemorate the achievements 
of the battlefield, why not, too, to the heroes of the forest ? When 
we send up a shaft to mark the site where men fell when fighting 
under the impelling stress of battle, why not to the men who laid 
down the axe to take up the rifle and defend wife and little ones ? 

Heroes of the war there may be, but every man who came to 
the woods of Ohio to make for himself and his children a home 
is no less a hero. To this man there was not the shrill voice of 
the fife, nor the rattle of the drum to call him to arms. There 
was not the sight of flying colors to beckon him to do and dare. 
There were no comrades keeping step to the martial music nor 
officers to tell him what to do. Rut instead he fought in the king- 
dom of the woods. In the days of the reign of the axe, he walked 
his domain as a knight errant of old. In this kingdom of the forest 
he stood the king. 

The heroes of a thousand battlefields do not appeal to me as 
do tliese heroes of the forest. The chronicles of a Csesar or a 
Napoleon telling us how men strive for the vain bauble of an 
imperial diadem, do not mean to me so much as do the simple 
annals of the poor, where we learn how brave men and women 
fought with the forces of untamed nature, wild animals and 
wilder men, in order that they might become kings and queens 
whose palace is the home. 

The men and women, therefore, who went to their death 
here, amid the cries of the blood-curdling war whoop, are rep- 
resentative of that noble army of pioneers that came to the woods 
of Ohio, not for adventure, but for the best of God-given insti- 
tutions — home. They are types of that migrating instinct that 
has been the genius of progress in the Anglo-Saxon-Teutonic 
race, from the time when from its home in Asia it spread its suc- 
cessive ways over Low Europe and established the world powers 
in modern history. Then beyond the Atlantic, Puritan and Cava- 
lier separately established the genesis of a new nation. Then from 



Big Bottom and Its History. 



21 



the rocky fortresses of the Appalachians. Puritan and CavaHer 
looked down together upon the fair valley of the Ohio. To them 
it was as the revelation to the prophet on Pisgah — the Promised 
Land. They were permitted to enter. But to hold it they fought 
with stubborn tenacity. Every foot was contested. But forward 
went this army across the prairies of Indiana and Illinois until 
the smoke curled from the settler's cabin on the banks of the 
Father of Waters. Then pressing on it swept across the western 
plains. The Rocky ■Mountains were no barrier and on their west- 
ern slopes and in the valleys of sunny California and where "rolls 
the Oregon" went the pathfinders of civilization. And now 
through the portals of the Golden Gate we send forth our ships 
to that new old land in which the world seeking Genoese dreamed 
lay his El Dorado. 

To this hero of the forest — hunter, scout, pathfinder, trail- 
maker, home7maker — we dedicate to-day this monument as a 
memorial to his sacrifices and services and bravery, with the firm 
and confident hope that the new generations now reaping the 
fruition of that toil will husband the splendid inheritance left us 
by such men as fell beneath the tomahawk of the ruthless savage 
on the banks of the ]\Iuskingum on that winter evening over a 
century ago. 

ADDRESS OF E. O. RANDALL. 

This is a red letter day for the Ohio State Archaeological 

and Historical Society. For many years it has been the custodian 

of Fort Ancient, the most extensive and 

majestic earth enclosure of the Mound 

Builders in this country and for a somewhat 

less time has been the owner of Serpent 

Mound, the most mysterious religious relic 

left by that vanished and wonder-exciting 

race. Through the praiseworthy sentiment 

and generous disposition of Mr. Brokaw the 

Society becomes the proud possessor of this 

historic ground, the site of one of the most 

E o RANDALT. memorablc events in the pioneer period of 

our state. The story of the birth of the 

American Republic and its sturdy strife for independent exis- 




22 Ohio Arcli. and Hist. Society Publications. 

tence is unique and powerful. The little nation born of the 
colonies that fringed the Atlantic coast looked longingly to 
the west for opportunities of expansion and growth. Neither 
Athenian annals nor Roman records present pages so fraught 
with recitals of perilous adventure, strange incident, indom- 
itable courage, persistent progress, unflinching patriotism and 
matchless heroism as are revealed in the accounts of the daunt- 
less discoverers and intrepid pathfinders who pentetrated 
their way across streams and swamps and through the forest 
fastnesses of the untrodden west. Then follows the soul-stirring 
story of the settlement of the Ohio Valley, and the transforma- 
tion, almost in a generation, of a "howling wilderness" into the 
peaceful and prosperous garden spot of civilization — the Buckeye 
commonwealth. Tlie poetic classic that tells of the search of the 
Argonauts for the Golden Fleece is not comparable to the simple 
but splendid prose epic describing the journey of the little band 
of Revolutionary veterans which organized in the "Bunch of 
Grapes Tavern," journeyed over the snow-clad mountains, where 
the foot of the white man had never trod before, to Simrall's Ferry 
on the Youhiogheny and thence in the "Galley Adventure" floated 
down the Beautiful River and made landing and lodgment at the 
mouth of the Muskingum, upon whose picturesque and peaceful 
banks we are now assembled. The details of that settlement and 
the pushing out of the more venturesome members to the location 
of this spot will be told by other speakers. My personal interest 
and ancestral pride rests in another section of the state. I am a 
Western Reserver — a descendant of the Yankee section of the 
New England emigration to Ohio. My forebears were in the 
frontier settlement business. My grandfatlier and grandmother 
on my mother's side were in the party of David Hudson which left 
the Nutmeg State in the year 1800 and proceeded overland in ox- 
teams to the shores of Lake Ontario — thence in flat-boats to the 
Niagara River, drawing their floats around the mightv cataract 
and pulling along the shore of Lake Erie to the Cuvahoga, up 
which they ascended, finally founding the town of Hudson. 

'Many an hour in my early boyhood days have I sat spell- 
bound while listening to the tales which my mother told of the 
trials and adventures which grandfather and grandmother related 



Big Bottom and Its History. 23 

to her. Real adventures in the Wild West. One in particula r 
indelibly impressed my youthful mind. The incident is that one t 
upon a time the larder of the little log cabin in which they livi: d 
gave out and the cupboard was bare. Grandmother in the emer- 
gency repaired some two or three miles to a neighbor's cabin for 
the loan of provisions. She started back with the basket of pioneer 
edibles, chief among which were numerous chunks of "jerked" 
venison. She was overtaken by some wolves which frightened 
her into greatest possible speed for her cabin. It was one of those 
occasions when "be it ever so humble, there's no place like home." 
As her hungry and fierce pursuers gained upon her she deftly 
threw out a chunk of the venison, a sort of a sop to Cerebus, over 
which they would stop to wrangle ; during their contest and delay 
grandmother was sprightly sprinting for the home goal ; the 
bait having been fought over and devoured, another dash of the 
wolves would again bring them close upon the heels of their flee- 
ing victim. Another chunk of venison was thrown out as the sec- 
ond prize for their competition. This perilous act was encored 
several times until the last piece was hurled at the pack just as 
grandmother breathlessly reached the cabin door. As grand- 
mother encountered this thrilling experience some years before 
the birth of my mother, it follows that had not that stock of 
"jerked" venison held out, I would not be here to-day to regale 
you with its faithful recital. You can believe me that in recogni- 
tion of that preservation, venison has ever since been "deer" meat 
in our family. 

We are here to-day to commemorate, by the dedication of this 
simple and substantial shaft, a tragedy in our western pioneer 
history that reminds us most forcibly of the unparalleled perils, 
sufferings and sacrifices of the Ohio pioneers. Truly the corner- 
stone of this state was laid in blood. Our New England fore- 
fathers fought the British soldiers and the despised ally, the Hes- 
sians. But it was civilized warfare. The Ohio pioneers fought 
the British and his ally, the cruel, bloodthirsty savage. Immortal 
history was written on the banks of the Maumee, the Miamis, the 
Sandusky, the Scioto, the Muskingum and the Tuscarawas, a his- 
tory of more lasting benefit to mankind than that written on the 
banks of the Tiber, the Danube, the Rhine, the Seine, or the 



24 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Thames. It was upon the hills and amid the valleys of the Ohio 
rivers that the final struggle ensued between the Saxon and the 
savage. It was here the Redman, child of the forest, took his 
stand and defiantly and desperately declared he would retreat no 
further, but instead would drive the pale face intruder back over 
the Ohio and beyond the Alleghanies. It was the most bitterly 
contested racial war in the annals of man. It opened with the 
Conspiracy of Pontiac (1763) and continued with varying degrees 
of fierceness for fifty years until the Confederacy of Tecumseh, 
the greatest warrior of his race who yielded not till defeat and 
death overtook him at the Battle of the Thames (1813). Ohio 
was the rallying ground of the great Indian nations — here were 
born and here fought the most illustrious chiefs, Pontiac, Corn- 
stock, Logan, Little Turtle, Tarhe, Tecumseh and a score of 
others renowned in war, in the chase, and in oratory. Within the 
boundaries of our state, moreover, were enacted some of the most 
eventful scenes of the American Revolution. The British western 
headquarters were at Detroit, the American western headquarters 
were at Fort Pitt. The sparsely located settlers of Ohio and 
Kentucky were between the two. The war w'as that of infuriated 
savages, spurred on by unscrupulous, treacherous and shrewd 
British soldiers and officers. Their weapons were not merely the 
flint lock but the tomahawk and the scalping knife. The Eastern 
Colonists knew little of the horrors of warfare endured by the 
western frontiersman — a warfare continued for twenty years, 
from the Battle of Point Pleasant on the banks of the Ohio (1774) 
to the Battle of Fallen Timbers on the banks of the Maumee 
(1794). It is a tragic and unprecedented history. 

It is difficult, almost impossible, for us who are assembled 
here to-day, gathered from hundreds of homes of comfort and lux- 
ury, to realize that this spot, now the center of a picturesque and 
peaceful landscape, with its flowing river, tree-clad hills, grain- 
enriched fields and thriving village was little more than a century 
ago the scene of a horrible, blood-curdling massacre, a fiendish 
slaughter in which the darkness of the forest was illumined by the 
flames of the burning hut, and the stillness of the valley was 
broken by the gruesome war cries of the savages and the shrieks 



Big Bottom and Its History. 25 

•of their defenseless victims. As with the magic of a wizard's 
wand, civiHzation has changed the picture. 

Daniel Webster in his resplendent oration at the dedication 
of the Bunker Hill Monument in 1825 began with these words: 
"We live in a most extraordinary age. Events so various and so 
important that they might crowd and distinguish centuries, are in 
•our times compressed within the compass of a single life." He 
then in magnificent rhetoric described the progress of American 
history during the fifty years beginning with the Battle of Bunker 
Hill and ending with the date of the dedication of the monument 
"before which he stood. If it were possible, how much more elo- 
quent might have been Mr. Webster's words were he here to-day 
to compare the incredible progress of American life in the three- 
quarters of a century following the date of the dedication at- 
Bunker Hill? At that time the population of this country was 
Ijut twelve million and the western movement had scarcely crossed 
the Mississippi. To-day we number eighty millions of people 
and our vast republic reaches with almost evenly distributed enter- 
prise from the Great Lakes to the Gulf and from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific. Mr. Webster closed his speech wishing "By the bless- 
ing of God may this country become a vast and splendid monu- 
ment, not of oppression and terror, but of wisdom, of peace and 
of liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration for- 
ever." We have more than fulfilled the optimistic faith of the 
great orator. The plucky and persevering pioneers who fought 
and bled and died in the conflict with the relentless savages for the 
conquest of this fair Ohio Valley, builded better than they knew. 
The Ohio Valley, particularly that portion between the Great 
Lakes and the River, the Alleghany Mountains and the Wabash, 
has given to the Union one of the brightest gems in the jeweled 
orown of states. The survivors of the Revolution, wearied and 
worn, homeless and poverty stricken, sought this fair country for 
homes in their declining years and for a heritage to their children 
and their children's children. The soil of Ohio was made sacred 
by the dust of the three thousand Revolutionary soldiers who were 
buried beneath its sod, and that precious patriotic seed brought 
forth loval fruit an hundred fold, for it was Ohio that furnished 



26 



Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 



three hundred thousand soldiers in the great Civil War that was 
to cement and weld into one indissoluble federation the nation the 
forefathers made independent. With filial reverence we erect 
monuments of marble and tablets of brass upon the sites most 
memorable in the storm and stress of the earl}- pioneer days. But 
greater than all the memorials of art to noble founders are the 
products of industry, progress, prosperity and humanity, which 
their sons have reared upon the firm foundation laid by their an- 
cestors. Beneath the floor in the crypt of St. Paul's, London, lie 
the remains of Sir Christopher Wren, the great genius who 
built that temple, a spacious altar scarcely second to any reared 
to a Christian faith. On the little bronze plate that so modestly 
marks the last resting place of the great architect, are these 
words: "Si momiuicntiiin rcquiris, circumspice." (If you seek 
his monument, look about you.) And so we say to-day, if you 
seek for the monument of the patriotic pioneers, look about you 
and behold our grand and stately commonwealth, with its crowded 
cities, its teeming villages, its freight-laden thoroughfares, its 
marvelous, unrivalled and world-inspiring civilization. 



ADDRESS OF GEN. R. BRINKERHOFF. 
As President of the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Soci- 
ety it is not incumbent upon me to make 
an extended address but simply to accept 
the obligation imposed upon us by the state 
to properly care for, in the future, the 
monument, which we are here to-day to 
dedicate. 

We are here also to remember, and com- 
memorate the event which this monument 
perpetuates. 

We are here also to remember gratefully 
the many other sacrifices made by the early 
settlers of Ohio in building up the civiliza- 
tion we now enjoy. 

At this place where we are now gathered, in the late autumn 
of the year 1790, one hundred and fifteen years ago, twelve set- 
tlers were slaughtered by the Indians. 




GEN. K. HKINKKKHOl- I- 



Big Bottom and Its History. 27 

This was the first massacre and the principal one, during the 
Indian war then just opening. 

Marietta had been settled two years before, and Big Bot- 
tom, as this place was then known, was an overflow from that 
place and comprised altogether thirty-six persons. 

The year before several other settlements were established 
from Marietta, but thus far this was the most remote. 

No state in the Union was settled by a more worthy or en- 
terprising class of citizens. They were largely the soldiers or 
sons of soldiers of the Revolutionary War. Many were college 
graduates, and practically all of them were well educated, and 
they brought to the west the very best civilization of the east. 

Ohio at that time was an unbroken wilderness filled with 
wild animals and wilder men, and to conquer it the highest cour- 
age and ability were required. The result was the founding of 
a state which in all the requirements of a high civilization has 
no superior. Even in wealth and population to-day there is 
no state in the Union that equals it if we leave out the great cities 
of New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, which are mainly for- 
eign and not native. 

The men or women, therefore, who founded this state and 
gave their lives to its development and established the institutions 
we now enjoy, are well worthy of remembrance and honor by 
those who come after them and now enjoy the fruits of their 
labors and sacrifices. 

What these labors and sacrifices were, will be indicated in 
the address of the distinguished speakers who are here to-day 
and to whom I now give opportunity to be heard. 

ADDRESS OF JUDGE W. B. CREW. 

When I look over this audience and see here this afternoon 
so many friendly and familiar faces, I feel that I need hardly 
assure this company that I am glad to be with you on this occa- 
sion. It is always a very great pleasure to me, upon any 
occasion, to meet and greet my friends and neighbors of good 
old Morgan, the county of my birth. And I think I may be 
pardoned for saying that on this occasion the pleasure is doubled 



28 



Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Puhlications. 



by reason of the fact that I find myself in such distinguished 
company. And I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and through 
you, the society under whose auspices these exercises are held, 
for the courtesy which has afforded me the opportunity of 
being with you on this interesting occasion. If I remember rightly, 
it was Isaak Walton who said in his "Angler," that Dr. Botelier 
was accustomed to remark, "that doubtless God might have 
made a better berry than the strawberry, but doubtless He never 
did," and I suppose that I but voice the sentiments of this com- 
pany, and assert a truth, when I say, that doubtless there might 
have been a better place to be born in than 
Morgan county, but doubtless no such place 
exists. And those of us who are to the 
manor born, but whose business has for a 
season called us into other fields, are, I 
assure you, always glad to get back home. 
My friends, I came here to-day at the 
kind invitation of my friend, Mr. Randall, 
not as one of the orators of this occasion, 
and not expecting or intending to make a 
speech, but I came, doubtless as most of 
you have come, only that 1 might, as a 
citizen of Morgan county, testify by my presence my appreciation 
and approval of what has been done by one of our patriotic, 
public-spirited fellow-citizens, Mr. Brokaw, in erecting, at his 
own expense, this beautiful monument, which he has generously 
donated to The Archaeological and Historical Society of Ohio, 
to the end that there may be preserved and perpetuated the 
memory of one of the greatest, if not the greatest historic event 
in the pioneer history of Morgan county. This upon his part 
was certainly a most generous and gracious act, and I want here 
and now, for myself and for you, as citizens of Morgan county, — 
for whom I think I may assume to speak on this occasion, — to 
thus publicly thank Mr. Brokaw for his generous gift. 

As we have been so eloquently told by Prof. Martzolff, this 
custom of erecting monuments or tablets to commemorate great 
happenings or events of public interest, is a custom of great 
antiquity ; as old perhaps as the centuries themselves. And when 




W. B. CRKW. 



Big Bottom and Its History. 



29 



we consider that but for this custom and the preservation of 
these monuments and tablets, much that we now recognize and 
accept as historic truths would have been lost to us and all future 
generations, it is matter of earnest congratulation upon our part, 
that this monument, which we are met here to-day to dedicate, 
has been donated to, and has been formally accepted by the 
Archaeological and Historical Society of Ohio. For we feel and 
know that its acceptance by this Society gives abundant assurance 
that with such a custodian, it will be so cared for and preserved 
that in the years to come it will remain in place to tell its sad 
historic story. That this may be so, and that many years of 
health and happiness may yet remain to its generous donor, is, I 
am sure, the earnest, heartfelt wish of each and all of us. 



ADDRESS OF W. H. HUNTER. 

I am a Presbyterian and believe in destiny as did Mr. Bro- 
kaw, whose ancestor I surmise, was Abraham Brokaw who set- 
tled in what is now Nottingham township, 
Harrison county, in 1798, and who with 
others organized the Nottingham Presbyte- 
rian Church in 1802. He believed in des- 
tiny ; that the pioneer followed at the right 
hand of God and nothing was done not 
directed by Divine power. I can see des- 

tiny in the horrid massacre of the pioneers 

^■h on this spot and which we commemorate 
^j//^Kt to-day. It pointed the way to the achieve- 
ment which is the great state of Ohio, 
w. H. HUNTER. j^^^ massacre called the attention of the 

authorities at Philadelphia to the need of a strong arm ; it called 
attention to the fact that there really were settlers beyond the 
Alleghanies. 

But you may ask why did not Harmar and St. Clair, when 
they took up arms save the hour? Had they succeeded the 
treaties would have made the English line at the Ohio .river in- 
stead of at the lakes. Their defeats only jiointed the way for the 
intrepid Anthony \\'ayne, whose victory at Fallen Timbers and 
whose treatv at Greenville ended the Revolutionarv War as the 




30 



Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 



Battle of Point Pleasant Treaty twenty years before was its be- 
ginning. Had the pioneers been successful in that conflict the 
Americans would not have rebelled. It would have shown the 
impossibility of success. 

But Colonel Lewis was successful, and Anthony Wayne was 
successful. The Revolution culminated in independence, but not 
for Ohio until Wayne fought the last battle that gave our people 
instead of England the land upon which we now stand. 

England could not be induced to accept the provisions of the 
Treaty of Paris as it related to the Northwest, whose conquest 
was made by George Rogers Clark, and she persisted in her 
claim to the land northwest of the river Ohio, and she persisted 
in sending her savage allies into the settlements hoping to thus 
make xA.merican settlement impossible. 

The incursion that massacred the settlers at the place known 
in history as Big Bottom, called attention to England's intention 
as God directed, and Harmar, St. Clair and Wayne, under the 
same powerful Director, made it possible for us to dedicate this 
monument. 

ADDRESS Or PROF. M. R. ANDREWS. 

The young men who came to this spot a hundred and fifteen 
years ago formed the extreme outpost of the New England 
settlement that had been made at Marietta 
two years earlier. It is almost impossible 
for us now to realize the difficulties and 
dangers which beset those struggling colo- 
nies. I doubt if there were more than two 
thousand actual settlers on this side of the 
Ohio, from the Muskingum to the Miami, 
when the little band of pioneers were mas- 
sacred at this place. On the edge of this 
great territory small parties of bold men 
watched and toiled, waiting for the time 
when British agents would cease to send the 
savage on his errands of murder. The first seven years of 
the settlement along this border was, as has already been 
said, a continuation of the Revolutionary War, which began at 




M. R. ANDRKWS. 



Big Bottom and Its History. 31 

Point Pleasant and ended at Fallen Timbers. After Wayne had 
made a treaty with the Indians, and Jay with the British, the 
occupation of the savage was gone, and the settlements began 
to extend beyond the banks of the rivers. 

Yet long before this consummation, even within the period 
of border warfare, these pioneers from New England, officers 
and soldiers of the Revolution, began to make arrangements 
for the education of their children. They were determined 
that "religion, morality and knowledge" should "be encouraged" 
from the very beginning. In the first winter Major Anselm 
Tupper taught a school in the Marietta block-house, and in the 
first summer Manasseh Cutler had suggested Harmar Hill as 
a suitable place for a university. The rapid settlement of the 
Scioto country so changed the center of population that a few 
years later General Rufus Putnam found it expedient to choose 
another site — Chandler's Hill — where Ohio University now 
stands. Ere this was done the citizens of Marietta had taken 
steps towards having an institution for higher education in their 
own town. Within a year after the close of the Indian War 
they began Muskingum Academy, from which grew Marietta 
College. The first body of emigrants to this valley, those from 
New England, have left us, then, two worthy monuments of 
their zeal in behalf of higher education, Ohio University and 
Marietta College. 

When peace had been established the Western Reserve was 
opened for settlement, and from that time New England sent 
comparatively few to "Muskingum," as this whole valley was 
then called. The hardy yeomen of Virginia came across the 
country and occupied the land north of the Marietta settlements. 
Their path is marked by the names of Monroe and Morgan 
counties, commemorating two of Virginia's distinguished sons. 
North of these and mingling with them came the Scotch-Irish 
from Pennsylvania, building Presbyterian churches and acade- 
mies and preaching "righteousness, temperance and judgment 
to come." Some of those academies have grown to Colleges, 
and one of them, Muskingum College, though little among the 
tribes of Israel, has sent out many a Saul to lead the people. A 
college that has given us the Finlevs, the Stevensons and such 



32 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

university presidents as Dr. Thompson and Dr. Harper deserves 
grateful remembrance from the whole people. 

North of the Scotch-Irish zone there came from Pennsyl- 
vania to the Muskingum, as the Tuscarawas was then called, 
the Moravians .to occupy the land where their disciples, the 
Christian Indians had been murdered. John Heckewelder, the 
pioneer of this movement, had visited this valley as early as 1762. 
A group of Moravian churches in Tuscarawas county remains 
as a fitting memorial of his Christian labors. 

Early in the nineteenth century immigrants from Ger- 
many and Ireland came in considerable numbers to this valley. 
Their settlements are marked by Lutheran and Catholic churches. 

The blending of all these elements could not be accomplished 
at once. Even the native Americans had little acquaintance 
with their neighbors from other states, and there were differ- 
ences in faith and in customs which for a time kept the little 
groups asunder. I have often heard a tradition of a New Eng- 
land family that was surrounded by Virginians. A girl from 
this family had gone on some errand to the cabin of a neighbor. 
While she was there a child exclaimed, "Mother, give her a 
piece of bread. I want to see how a Yankee eats." There were 
also differences and mutual prejudices between Americans and 
foreigners, but comradeship in battling with the wilderness 
changed these feelings into sympathy and respect. The Amer- 
ican soon learned that the Irishman or the German was as handy 
at a log-rolling or a raising as any other man, and these learned 
in their turn that the Yankee or the Virginian was not unwilling 
to be neighborly. Whatever traces of old differences remained 
were obliterated by the storm of Civil War. The strife which, 
for a time, divided the nation united the section. In the regiment 
to which I had the honor to belong, as well as in others raised 
in this valley, there were worthy descendants of all these classes. 
Cavalier and Puritan, Catholic and Protestant, German, Irish, 
and American, were all united in defending a common country, 
and thus in the fiery trial of war all the elements were fused into 
a united people. 



Big Bottom and Its History. 



33 




TOD B. GALLOWAY. 



ADDRESS OF TOD B. GALLOWAY. 

If I were to ask you what I should talk about. I suppose 
you would auswer me as the small boy did in Sunday School 
one day when a man got up and said, "Now, 
children, what shall I talk about?" and the 
bright boy said, "about one minute." I am 
somewhat like an old Scotch preacher I once 
heard of : A man went to church one day, 
and he noticed that the preacher was crying 
a great deal during the delivery of his ser- 
mon. Finally the stranger turned to an old 
lady who was sitting near him. "What makes 
your preacher cry so much?" he asked her. 
She answered, "Hoot mon. if you dinna have 
more to say than he has, you would crv too."' 
So if you see great streams of tears running down my face before 
I finish talking you will know the reason of it. It happened to be 
my good fortune to be sent with other gentlemen representing the 
commission appointed by the Ohio Legislature to investigate the 
State Hospitals erected for the care of those afflicted with tuber- 
culosis ; one of the places we visited was the town of Rutland, 
Mass. After we were through our investigation of the splendid 
hospital at that place. I happened to wander through the old 
town of Rutland, and soon found myself standing before the 
historical Putnam house, and by a strange coincidence I stood 
there on the anniversary day on which that band had started 
out from that home, and it struck me with peculiar force that 
we were from Ohio endeavoring to carry out a splendid purpose, 
that of erecting a hospital for the care of those unfortunately 
afflicted with disease, just as our forefathers had left the little 
town of Rutland, Mass., to aid others of their nationality to pro- 
cure homes in this wilderness. 

Little did I think on that April morning as I stood there 
that I would be privileged to be here on this occasion, at the 
dedication of this monument, erected to commemorate the mas- 
sacre of the sons of that splendid band of pioneers who set out 
to people this valley. My friends, we of Ohio do not have to 
Vol. XV — 3. 



34 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

search history other than that of our own state for noble ideas. 
The story of the foundation of our state and its progress is hke 
a romance. 

Well did Washington say in the dark days of the Revolution 
when he was questioned as to what he would do if he met defeat, 
that he would come out here and settle in the valley of the ]\Ius- 
kingum. Several years ago a friend of mine, a lady of Ohio, 
met an English woman whose whole idea of x\merica was based 
upon a winter spent on a ranch in Colorado, and she said to this 
lady: "What do you raise in Oao?" "We call it Ohio, and we 
raise chiefly great men and women." And that was a very apt 
reply, my friends, because that is what we have done in this state 
from its foundation. We have, from the days of the passage of 
the ordinance of 1787 down to the present time, been in history. 
It is useless for me to try to explain to you what Ohio has done 
for this Union ; you already know. I merely want to say that a 
day like to-day marks a patriotic epoch ; and also, that it is par- 
ticularly gratifying to me to see so many children here, because 
they learn by precept, and a day like this is a wonderful object 
lesson to the citizens of the future. You know in former times 
it used to be the custom when they wanted to mark boundary 
lines between two places they would take the children out and 
Avhip them and the children remembered where they were whipped, 
and in that way the record of the boundaries was preserved. I 
think this is on the same principle. 

ADDRESS OF D. J. RYAN. 

I congratulate Morgan county and I congratulate our society 
on this occasion in doing honor to itself and credit to the people 
of this county in remembering in the manner that they have the 
noble pioneers who went before them, of a century ago, and T 
congratulate Mr. Brokaw on living to see the day when his 
judgment and patriotism inspired him to contribute something 
that will bear in the mind and keep the memory green of the 
vounger generation, of those men and women who laid the foun- 
dation of this commonwealth. The greatest thing that Ohio has 
are its plain men and women who live among the hills and on 
the plains, and that consecrate their lives to the dignity and 



Bi^ Bottom and Its History. 



35 



nobility of the home. It is greater than all the wealth and 
all the power and all the fame that is won on any field, be it 
the field of commerce, the field of finance, or the field of war ; 
greater than the greatest money magnate of to-day ; more loved 
in the memory of the people of Ohio is the memory of these peo- 
ple who lived a century ago, and who gave up their lives and 
became martyrs to the progress of the state of Ohio in order 
that its great foundation might be built like unto that of a stone. 
The stdte of Ohio is great ; this state of Ohio has taken the 
position that it has in history because the best blood, the best 
brawn, and the best brains of America contributed to lay the foun- 
dation of Ohio, and we assembling here to- 
day do more honor to ourselves than even 
we do to their memory ; nothing that we 
can do or say to-day can consecrate this 
ground any more than it was consecrated 
when the wonderful act was performed bv 
which this people were made martyrs to the 
development of Ohio. 

I do not think Mr. Randall has said as 
much as he ought to have said about our 
society; it was founded in 1885 by General 
Brinkerhofif, Allen Thurman, Rutherford B. 
Hayes and Mr. Sessions. The object of this society is, in 
the midst of all this rush and bustle to turn backward 
and to perpetuate by monument, by speech, and by writings 
the deeds and acts of our forefathers. It is good for 
the people to be reminded that there was a great solid race 
that preceded them ; it is well that in this age when men 
think of nothing but chasing the almighty dollar that some organ- 
ization be formed for the purpose of preserving the memory of 
the deeds of our forefathers in order that their sons may not for- 
gfet them entirely. We are not here to-day to share in this honor ; 
we are here simply as your agents, believing that we meet the 
•expectations of your patriotism. Whenever and wherever this 
society can do anything to make the memory of Ohio greater. or 
to perpetuate the memory of her former sons, she does it with the 
■approval of the people of Ohio. 




36 



Ohio Arch, and Hist. Socictx Publications. 



This state was the thoroughfare for all the races and all the 
people in their strug-gle to reach the west. Its foundations were 
laid by the vefy best brains of this country, when that great Amer- 
ican stream of settlers founded this composite Ohio. 

Wherever you look you will find the Ohio man ; and as long 
as we have The Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society to per- 
petuate the greatness of the Ohioan, and mark the places where 
they have accomplished their great acts, Ohio will live long in 
the history of the country. 

DR. NAYLOR'S POEM -"THE HARDY PIONEER." 

When the century old was dying 

And the new was waking to birth, 
When the shortening days were flying 

Like the shadows across the earth ; 
When the speeding months were a-shiver 

In the fall of the fading year, 
To the banks of the bonny river 

Came the hardy pioneer. 

No castle secure and massy, 

No orchard or field of grain, 
No meadowland smooth and grassy 




J. B. NAYLOR. 



Found he in his vast domain ; 
For the earth in its pristine glory 

Knew naught of the tiller's ban — 
And the solitude lisped the story 
Of a land unspoiled by man. 



But the woods were his for the asking. 

And the streams at his door, and the fish 
While the game on the hillsides basking 

Was the fruitful fact of his wish. 
And the nuts, in a fit of vagrance. 

Dropped into his waiting hand — 
And the fall flow'rs shed their fragrance • 

Over all the bounteous land. 



Big Bottom and Its History. 37 

His home was a log-built cottage, 

His hearth was a bed of clay ; 
And a pone and a mess of pottage 

Were his at the close of day. 
No longer had he to stifle — 

His domain was the trackless wild ; 
And his dogs and his flintlock rifle 

Stood next to his wife and child. 

The sun, in its midday splendor, 

Lent cheer with its kindly light, 
And the moon, wan-faced and tender, 

Smiled down on his cot at night. 
But his heart was a-dread with the vastness, 

And a-chill with the Frost King's breath — 
And afar in the forest fastness 

Lurked the skeleton shade of Death ! 

The old year died — and was shrouded 

In a mantle of spotless white, 
And the pall of his bier beclouded 

The moon and the stars from sight ; 
But the settler, safe in his shelter — 

Where the flames on his hearth leaped high. 
Cared naught for the fearsome skelter 

Of the North Wind moaning by. 

But is that the voice of the mourner 

A-wail through the leafless trees, 
That brings the gaunt hound from his corner — 

And the child to his father's knees? 
Ah, no ! 'Tis no night wind benignant 

That the poor settler knows so well ; 
'Tis the sound of the awful, malignant. 

And devilish Indian yell ! 

Small need is there now for reciting — ■ 

Meager need for the poet to tell 



38 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

How the brave pioneer fell fighting. 
How his dauntless wife fought and fell. 

Let the autumn breeze whisper the story, 
Till the rustling" reeds quiver and wave — 

Till the goldenrod showers its glory 
O'er the pioneer's lowly grave. 

As for us — when the spring flowVs are peeping 

From the frost-freed mould beneath, 
And the ice-freed river is leaping 

Like a flashing blade from its sheath, 
Let us gather the first wild beauty 

We can find on the brown earth's breast, 
And place it here — as a duty — 

Where the pioneer lies at rest. 

And again — when the summer is dying. 

And the year is growing old. 
When the russet leaves falling and flying 

Fetch a message of coming cold, 
Let us deem it a noble pleasure 

Once more to assemble here 
And bring a late autumn treasure 

To the hardy old pioneer. 

Thus in the "falling of the year" almost one hundred and 
fifteen years after the first scenes were enacted at Big Bottom, 
a patriotic people assemble, and with music, speech and poetry 
do honor to the noble army of pioneers, who gained for them 
the land they now hold, and to the venerable man who has given 
over to his fellow citizens, a perpetual memorial to the ''winning 
of the west" and to his own generous spirit. 

The Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society willingly 
accepts the guardianship of this historic site. It feels that as a 
state institution, organized for the purpose of furthering interest 
in our state's history, that it can do nothing better than to aid in 
preserving for the coming generations, the "land inarks of the 
fathers." 

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